Mother and Child, 1969

stone

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A number of female artists from Arviat learned to work the hard metamorphic stone that is hand-quarried locally for carving. Margaret Uyauperq Aniksak began working in 1966 and earned wide respect for her humanistic sculptures. She is best known for her maternal themes that convey the strong relationship between mother and children. In this work the woman’s body provides a strong and protective environment for the infant held firmly in her arms. Aniksak was interested in giving more realistic shape to her sculptures than most Arviat artists, as demonstrated in this sculpture by the one leg that projects forward to give an unexpected dynamism to the composition.